Tipping the Scales
by litra
Summary: The Justice League has vanished, and with no sign of the heroes the villains have started to make their moves. When the status quo is shattered, how will the Rogues — the lowest villains on the totem pole — fare?


This is loosely set around the time of final crisis, with pieces taken from the Justice League animated series, although I have taken the new 52 version of the Golden Glider. Go ahead and consider this an AU if that kind of thing bothers you.

the art was done by the amazing justm3h over on LiveJournal

* * *

The Rogues knew when the Flash wasn't in the Central-Keystone area. Most super-villains had ways of keeping tabs on their local hero. All of Gotham could see when the Bat Signal lit up the sky and it wasn't hard to look up and see the boy scout whenever visiting Metropolis. It was a bit harder to keep track of heroes like Green Lantern but Flash, Flash was easy. He made it easy. Flash made it a point to be everywhere, talk to anyone, helping out with the smallest things and generally making life a pain for anyone trying to do a dishonest days work. It may seem like Batman was everywhere, and Superman might have been able to see through walls, but it always seemed like Flash could be everywhere at once. So it wasn't exactly hard to figure out when the hero wasn't around.

All that said, the Rogues knew just how quickly Flash could come zipping back as well. Taking advantage of an unexpected absence meant less planning, so the Rogues as a group tended not to do anything worse than normal when the opponent was off the field. Planning was the only way you got that split second to act when the red blur was coming down on you.

Therefore it was a full month before the Rogues even discussed the situation, and only then because some old friends had bothered to come to town.

James had called the meeting. As the first Trickster he had the right, even if the former super-villain had given up his costume to be some kind of secret agent. Even if he did work for the government now, he had never acted against the Rogues, and that had weight to it. Plus he had asked nicely and Cold had been in a good mood. Asking that the gathering be at the old observatory had contributed as well. They had a new base now, and James had to know that, but he didn't just expect to walk in like the old days. He knew how things were done. Still, the observatory didn't have a lot of good memories left.

Of the six current Rogues only four bothered to show up. Lisa, the Glider, had blown the meeting off without explanation, and Weather Wizard had refused to go anywhere near the place which left Captain Cold, Heatwave, Captain Boomerang, and Mirror Master waiting on the presence of their old companion. Axel, The new Trickster had somehow managed to tag along as well but they were all set on ignoring him.

The old observatory hadn't been in the best shape back when they had been occupying it regularly, by this point it was past being a dump and into the realm of condemned buildings. The single tower that stood up from the domed roof had half collapsed in on itself and was now serving as the nest sites for at least a dozen pigeons. The large dome that had once been a roof still had a large chunk blown out of one side from the last battle that had taken place there. Wooden beams stuck out into the empty sky like dark crags against the cloud-filled sky. Rain came down through the opening in the same slow, endless rhythm that had been beating for the past four days. The still-standing section of the dome curved away from the soft wind keeping at least part of the concrete floor dry if not warm or well lit. That was where the Rogues had settled into old and creaking furniture to wait.

"Bloody rain," Digger broke the silence after a handful of minutes. He had never been an overly patient man and the others tended to give him looks if he sharpened his boomerangs for too long. It didn't matter that they had seen him in action and his name was right next to Deadshot's as far as snipers went, no one took boomerangs seriously. Given how often he took advantage of that fact he really shouldn't complain but these people were supposed to be his teammates for chrissake.

Cold growled in his direction but it was half hearted. They could all complain, but even if Weather Wizard had been there none of them would have done anything about it. All of them knew what the rain meant. Rain, but no lightning. None of the speedsters could avoid creating lightning with that much water in the air. It was a better warning system then almost anything else, but it was still cold and damp. Just because they took advantage of it didn't mean they had to enjoy it.

Through the rain and Axel's mutterings another sound came up. The car engine separated itself from the more distant highway and stepped forward adding the crunching of gravel, and a moment later a classical lilt from a radio. Outside in the long-abandoned parking lot, a car door opened and closed, ending the other sounds. Only Cold actually turned towards the door, but the others had their attention turned that way.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" Cold spoke before any of the others managed to find their tongues. The tall, thin man with long red-blond hair wasn't hard to recognize even if he wasn't wearing the green costume.

Hartley Rathaway, aka the Pied Piper, hadn't been a welcome member of the Rogues for a long time. He had gone straight around the same time as James but unlike the latter, Piper hadn't just left, he had gone over to the enemy. He had done the full on cape-and-tights routine, and helped take each of them down at one time or another. If he had ever been a Rogue, he certainly wasn't one now, and it was clear Cold wasn't the only one who thought so. Digger had drawn one of his boomerangs, and Heatwave was fingering his gun. Axel seemed oblivious, but then, the conflict had been mostly before his time.

"Cold — everyone — chill. I asked him to come." James came through the door after Piper, taking advantage of the commotion.

James was different. In his Trickster days he had been the center of the show. He had a costume with so many bright colors it hurt the eyes, and every attack was a new guessing game. Now he wore a suit, the only sign of his twisted fashion sense was a yellow and purple poke-a-dot tie. None of the Rogues missed the yoyo he was fiddling with.

"What I have to say concerns Piper as well, and I'd rather not play telephone between groups, so can we agree to a truce? Just for a few minutes?" James looked around at the various figures, then settled on Cold. He would be the one to decide. He was the only one who had any control over Heatwave. Boomerang would make a fuss and threaten to leave the team, but in the end he'd quiet down. Mirror Master would start quiet. Cold forced their eyes to meet briefly. If there was going to be any trouble from that direction it would come later.

"Fine. Talk."

James nodded, nearly bowing in a way that he knew would push Cold's buttons, but the hand with the yoyo went back into the pocket of his jacket. James snagged a nearby chair and pulled it closer, sitting in it sideways. He looked around at the congregation until Piper settled against one wall and Cold dropped back into his seat.

"Wonderful." James seemed to make a 180, his expression and posture going from mischievous cajoling to a seriousness that only Piper had ever seen before, and even then only once when James had been pushed into a corner. The others all shifted where they sat, suddenly uneasy. James' next words were in a level, professional tone that seemed to belong to another person. "I'm sure everyone here knows the current status of the Flash, but you might not know that the rest of the Justice League has gone off grid as well. According to my department's records, of the 29 full active members of the League only Red Tornado, Red Arrow, Hawkman, and Black Canary have been active in the last 44 days. The numbers are unconfirmed but it appears that another 7 part time members are also gone. Thats a total of 32 of the world's leading and certainly most powerful heroes gone for over six weeks."

James paused, not looking at any one of them, but letting his eyes drift toward each in turn.

"I realize that the Rogues prefer not to get involved with the larger game of politics," at that James' eyes fell on Cold. "but just to fill you in. The rest of the world has not been idle while our guardians have been away."

James and Axel were the only ones who didn't shift in their seats: James because that was exactly the reaction he had been trying to bring out and Axel seemingly because he wasn't paying attention. The younger Trickster was fixated on a rubix cube and seemed to be quite entertained despite getting nowhere with the puzzle. James reached into a pocket pulling out something the size and shape of an apple cut cleanly in half. As he began to speak again, the half dome he held out flickered to life, projecting holographic images to match his words.

"After 72 hours with no sign of the League, four warehouses on the Metropolis docks caught fire. No loss of life and no real danger but quite a lot of property damage. Most of the warehouses and cargo being stored belonged to a shell company that does money laundering for Intergang. Intergang has been trying to move into Metropolis for at least five years. Naturally Luther doesn't approve. For the past nine months or so the boy scout has made it a pain for either side to take the offensive. He comes down hard on whichever side makes the first move. As far as my people can figure, the warehouses were a test, because less than three hours later two of Intergang's safe houses went up in smoke: cause unknown. It took less than two days for a full blown war to start up. Luther's twisted the media, blaming Intergang. Intergang retaliated by calling in outside help, mercenaries and enforcers from Asia and Africa. I'm sure you've seen the news, Metropolis hasn't been a very nice place to visit recently. You'd almost think it was Gotham except that with Powers Industries orchestrating a hostile takeover of Wayne Enterprises and Batman nowhere to be found Gotham is even more of a hell hole than normal."

"You want to explain why I should care. I mean not getting invited to the party hurts but I'm sure I'll get over it." Captain Boomerang tossed out the interruption with a casual disdain for James's great and worldly concerns. He had pulled out one of his boomerangs again, it was the kind that folded so it could be tucked away about his person, and he was flipping it open and closed like a switchblade.

"It matters," James went on, ignoring the threat the weapon represented. "Because four days ago Luther won his war."

"Well there you go then, party's over." Boomerang pushed himself off the wall and took a step towards the door but Cold held up a hand.

"Make your point Trickster."

Axel looked up from his cube but before he could get a word in James manipulated the projector in his hand, ending the images of fire and crime scenes riddled with gunshots.

"My point is that Central and Keystone are going to be the next battleground." That managed to silence the room again. "Intergang retreated to Central America, but they aren't sitting quiet. Bane and his drug rings are hassling them. We've seen movement on Oolong island." James finished manipulating the projector and satellite images flickered into place. A tropical island built up with a mixture of heavy infrastructure and resort features. In the images, robots littered the beaches and there were signs of activity at both the airport and the launch pad.

"Since Intergang likes to keep all their pet scientists at Oolong, it's safe to say they've reloaded and are ready for round two. Now, in the past Intergang has preferred air or sea for large scale transport but Luther apparently knew that because he made it a point to take out all the planes and ships of theirs he could find. Not much he can do about land though, so that's how they'll be coming. Central is the one city of any size between them and Metropolis. Since Luther's influence here is minimal they have no reason to avoid you."

Heatwave was growling but it was the Mirror Master who spoke "So call in some heroes, as long as they're not staying, don't see why we should care."

James again ran his fingers over the projector shutting down the images of Intergang's forces, but instead of calling up something to replace them he turned to Piper. "I believe that would be your cue."

Piper had managed to control most of his reactions to James's news, leaning against the wall without meeting anyone's eyes. When addressed he drew even further into himself for a moment before pushing himself away from the wall with an attitude of a setting to a necessary but unpleasant task.

"I'm most familiar with the Titans, through Wally, but they won't be helping. With Green Lantern and the other Leaguers gone they're the only heroes on the west coast. They're training some new members right now so half the team is inexperienced. Wondergirl is leading at the moment I think. She wouldn't want to spread them too thin or throw her new recruits into something they couldn't handle. Plus, Nightwing isn't there to help since he's covering Gotham.

"Gotham is another hot zone. Two Face and Black Mask have started up again with Batman gone and I've heard something about the Riddler as well. What I do know is that in addition to Gotham's normal crew Nightwing has called in the Outsiders. The Birds of Prey have been seen around there as well, but at this point even that probably won't be enough.

"That leaves the JSA. They've been dealing with most of the natural disasters with the League gone, but they're also the main group looking for the League plus covering Washington DC with Hawkman occasionally being seen in Chicago. They've got a lot of members so they might be able to help but I don't know their roster so I don't know how much help we could actually count on. That's assuming there isn't something bigger going on. The last big guns on the planet are in the JSA so they're going to have priorities."

Piper ended with a shrug. "If a big fight goes down there probably won't be any heroes on hand. If the world starts to end people may show up but until then, the gem cities are on their own. Frankly the Rogues reputation probably isn't helping."

"There you have it." James waved to Piper as if they were both up on stage and he was directing some kind of show. "Given the current situation no heroes are likely to show up unless someone breaks the fabric of space and time."

"Hey, now you're talking." Axel jumped off the table landing about a foot off the ground. "Time to have some fun."

James had always meant to retrieve those shoes, but had never managed to get around to it. Ah well he had a better pair now. Maybe Axel would even tweak the harmonics and go flying into a wall; James would pay money to see that.

With a casual move Cold pulled out his gun and aimed at the air Axel was standing on. The sudden change made the shoes glitch, and Axel landed on his ass.

"No heroes means we have to deal with anything that goes down." Cold turned back to James. "And you think something is going to go down."

"Luther can't afford to let Intergang back in if he wants to keep Metropolis. All he needs is one surgical strike to take out the last of Intergang's forces, and his best chance to do that will be right here. Plus, there's another factor, Grodd."

Everyone in the room made some noise of displeasure or annoyance. Grodd had a thing against the Flash which meant more often than not, when he bothered to leave Africa, he came to the gem cities. The greater Central-Keystone area had been transformed into apes no less than four times, and collateral damage was always sky high when the heroes finally managed to fix things. Add mind control on top of that and it should be clear why anything to do with Grodd was bad for business all around.

James cleared his throat and went on. "Yes, well, when Intergang called in extra forces to fight Luther, they took their forces out of Kandac and Egypt, which freed up Grodd's north border since he's currently in charge of Gorilla City and the surrounding area. My people have no idea what he's doing since I still haven't managed to get eyes on the inside but it's Grodd. He's going to be up to something. if we're lucky he'll just pick a fight with Black Adam, but It would just be the icing on the cake for him to show up in the middle of everything."

"That it?" Cold asked.

James hesitated as an agent he wanted to call in as many agents as he could get and start arresting anyone with any connection to either side. The part of him that was still Trickster was silently dancing with glee. He decided on a compromise and nodded. "That's it."

"Fine, we'll deal with it." Cold moved towards the door without even glancing at any of the others. He passed Piper seemingly without seeing him. Heat Wave followed his lead.

"What, that's it? No heist? No plan? That's it?" Axel had managed to pick himself up and now he was looking around at the remaining Rogues.

Boomerang shrugged. "Cool your jets kid, we've got time. Can't do anything till they show up. Don't worry, things'll get noisy soon enough. Hey save a bloke a walk and drop me back at my place?" that last was directed at Mirror Master who shrugged and started for the old restroom where he knew there was a tarnished but unbroken mirror. Axel followed along like some kind of puppy. Cold pinned James with one last look, before heading for the door and the old truck waiting outside.

Piper let out a long slow breath. Turning to trickster he let his gaze go dry. "Want to explain why you really wanted me to be here?"

James shrugged. "Just what I said."

"No." Piper cut him off. "I didn't need to be here just because you didn't want to repeat yourself. Most of my job is gathering information, I already knew 90% of what you said and could have guessed the rest if I took two seconds to think about it."

James shifted to look up through the hole in the roof at the rain that was still coming down. "When was the last time the Rogues had to deal with something big like this? Without the heroes zipping around in the middle of things?"

Piper had to consider. There was that period of maybe four months when kid flash had been dead and before Wally had come back. And before that the kid had been in LA for most of a year. That was probably the closest but there had still been heroes around. When he was alive the kid had come zipping back any time he got a hint of trouble, and after he was dead the Rogues had been on the run so Piper wasn't sure if either of those counted. They had opted out of Libra's plot so that didn't count. James was right; it had been a while since anything big rested solely on their shoulders. Benefit and drawback of staying out of things apparently.

"It's been a while, but what does that have to do with me being called to sit in here?"

"Well, I figure none of these guys have really cut loose in a while. If there are heroes around maybe they don't put in the effort. And generally destroying everything is considered a bad thing."

James stopped. Piper just crossed his arms and waited for him to finish. Even back in his Trickster days he had never been all that patient. Piper knew he could wait him out. It only took about a minute before James went on.

"I guess I just want someone on the other team to keep an eye on things. You know how it goes. Civilians are generally the heroes problem."

He didn't put any emphasis on the last sentence, but it pushed Piper's mind in certain directions. Memories of people dying caught in the crossfire. Injuries caused when a hero wasn't fast enough or strong enough. Even in a fight between heroes who cared about such things the damage was never negligible.

Fights between villains tended to happen in dark corners because otherwise they were quickly interrupted, and there were better ways of drawing a hero's attention. If this fight was going to be out in the open with no one bothering to pull punches in case a hero showed up. Dear god, giant mushroom clouds came to mind.

And James had laid it on him to keep things from going that far.

Piper turned to stomp out into the rain, throwing one last quip over his shoulder. "If any of us survive this I'm going to make sure you end up with the cleanup."

Piper had contacts all over the city. That was his thing, or had become his thing ever since he'd gone straight and stopped using his talents with music to hypnotize people as the Pied Piper. Well, he was still the Piper but now he was more of a Robin Hood figure then a Rogue, or at least that was how he liked to think of it. He knew not everyone would agree.

The Rogues considered him a hero, but he didn't actually do much heroing. With all the speedsters who lived in the area, he didn't really need to. All he had to do was point them in the right direction and things would be done before he got there. Most of his job had to do with quietly collecting information on what was happening and where.

As much as he trusted James, the first thing he did after leaving the meeting was verify the new information through his own contacts. It was true, every fact checked out. Only then did the scale of it all settle on his shoulders.

If anything, this was going to blow up in their faces even more then James had indicated. The more information Piper collected, the worse everything started to look. It wasn't long before Piper started spreading the word to leave while you could, because hell was going to break loose before two weeks were up.

Intergang already had people in the city and they were being about as subtle as a brick to the face; and they were clearly only the advance guard. Luther wasn't in the city but his influence was being felt nonetheless. He had called in favors to put every road block he could find directly in front of his opposition. Every cop, state trooper, politician, and bounty hunter in three states was on the lookout for any member of Intergang that Luther knew about. Check points had been set up on every road larger than a dirt track to stop 'highly dangerous and illegal contraband' that an unspecified terrorist organization had managed to get across the border. Intergang was going to have to spend more money on bribes just getting into the city then it would cost to build all the equipment they were smuggling in.

Luther was funneling Intergang straight into the city, which was probably the best place to destroy them once and for all, at least from Luther's point of view. Intergang, meanwhile was steamrolling straight through every block Luther set up.

And behind it all the Rogues were doing absolutely nothing.

There hadn't been even a whisper from any of them since James had called them all in. As far as Piper could tell they hadn't even been down to that bar they all liked to hang out in.

At first Piper didn't think anything of it. The Rogues weren't exactly the most active group, and when Wally was around Piper didn't normally bother with keeping track of them. This was different though. With no activity from the Rogues he would be the city's only hero. To be honest it scared the crap out of him. The Pied Piper had never been a heavy hitter. At best he might have been called crafty, while at worst he was just another guy with a gimmick power. In mere days the city would be overrun by a veritable army of psychopathic killers, and that was just Intergang; Lex Luther was an Army onto himself. How was he supposed to stand up to that? There was a large part of him that just wanted to get as far away as he could while he still had that option.

Then there had continued to be no sign of the Rogues and Piper was forced to come to a terrifying conclusion; no one was going to help him. The Rogues, like anyone else in the city with the means and sense, had fled. He was going to be standing alone on what would become ground zero. He wanted to hate them for it but he couldn't really blame them. He would have made the same choice if he could have been able to live with himself afterwards.

* * *

By the time they were twenty miles out, Intergang had abandoned even the pretense of stealth.

The ongoing storm had been swirling around the city for days now, the endless dripping rain slowly soaking through everything and creating a layer of water over the world. Even in the middle of the day the air was filled with its gray haze and undefined shadows pooled around the buildings. Puddles slick with oil covered the old cobbled square in front of the courthouse and a film of something seemed to be collecting in the center fountain, which someone had turned off at some point and failed to turn back on.

They came up the main street of Keystone through the haze of rain in armored trucks, mechanical war machines marching beside the convoy like some kind of bizarre honor guard. Robotic insects that were as big as the trucks themselves marched beside level three omnibots and the old super-hood mark II. Ivo's old prototype MONKI's rode on whatever perch they could find, chattering like the beasts they resembled. Morrow's old Red Inferno and Tornado designs had been salvaged and pieced together; now walking beside the rest of the assembly. Two flatbed trucks carried mirrored array's that would have made Mirror Master drool and each one was marked with the eye of Doctor Cyclops. Other vehicles had mounted arrays of futuristic looking weaponry some emblazoned with the clock symbol of Doctor Tyme, the binary code of The Thinker or the cracked circle of Chang Tzu.

At some point Piper stopped trying to identify who had made what. With that much firepower it didn't really matter.

And that was only the armaments.

Wielding all that weaponry, the parts that didn't have AI anyway, were the solders of Intergang. They were fanatics who followed a twisted religion of pain and monstrous beast-men scarred from combat and the twisted experiments that had created them. Wolfmen marched beside suicide bombers, talking amicably with half reptile creatures. Rat-men slung rifles over their shoulders as taloned harpies and bat-creatures circled above.

Where they passed, they left careless destruction in their wake. Cars were pushed off the road to make room or turned over just for the hell of it. Windows were smashed, shop displays were torn open and clothing displays shredded. The flower shop on fourth had been cracked open and seemed to be being eaten by half a dozen ape-men. Traffic lights and streetlights were shouldered aside leaving sparks of electricity dancing in the rain filled air.

An army straight out of nightmares was marching down Main Street. From his perch on the roof of the Keystone Central Bank, Piper could see them in cold stark detail. He tried to estimate their numbers and came up with something in the thousand range.

No one tried to stop them. The police had either been beaten back already or had just looked at how outmatched they were and decided not to chance it.

All in all it could have been worse; the destruction was mostly superficial, caused by the restless creatures and amateurs who didn't know how to handle the machines they were driving. If they had been focused they could have systematically taken down the whole city, but small miracle, that wasn't the case. To them Keystone was just another road block Luther put in their way, and if they got through it they would be in the final stretch.

Piper wasn't about to stop them from leaving. He didn't care about Luther's plans or the war they were fighting, but having them just march through town without something going wrong seemed like too much to hope for.

Lex Luther himself announced his presence by stepping out of the courthouse doors, the sound of his slow footsteps creating a wave of silence that rolled over the line of Intergang's troops. He was dressed in a black suit and a brilliant emerald tie. Behind him and slightly to his left stood his personal shadow, Mercy Graves. Mercy was carrying a bulky aluminum briefcase, but other than that the two appeared to be unarmed. Piper didn't know if they were cocky, had something up their sleeves or were just that far off the deep end, but he did know one thing: Everything was about to go nuclear.

Piper stepped up onto the cornerstone of the bank's roof. Since the bank was across the square from where Luther stood on the courthouse steps and sat on the corner of Main and First there wasn't a single person who wouldn't be able to see him.

Piper spoke with a voice that was modulated so that even his normal tones would carry to the farthest ears. "Well, it looks like everyone's finally here, in which case I'd like to invite you to take this little grudge match somewhere else." It took the crowd a moment to orient on his voice but once the fingers started pointing everyone picked out his silhouette fairly quickly. "You see," He went on when the majority of the eyes were on him, "I'm fairly practical for one of the good guys. I'm not going to go all righteous vengeance on you because of a little posturing, but if you to throw down in the middle of the city I'm protecting, I will have no problem shattering all of your eardrums." Piper looked from Luther to the lead tank where he assumed whoever was in charge of Intergang's forces was.

It wasn't an idol threat. Normally he did try to avoid popping eardrums but it was definitely something he could do. Given his range wasn't quite what he had insinuated and he had never tried it on a rainy day which would probably shorten his range even further. Plus, it wasn't like that kind of thing would affect the robots, or anyone wearing decent earplugs for that matter.

Luther made a show of raising a hand to shield his eyes and squint in Piper's direction. "Mercy can you see who that is? I don't recognize the voice."

Piper's enhanced hearing picked up Luther's voice as clearly as if he was standing beside the other man.

"He's no one sir. A low level ex-villain turned informant. Goes by the name Pied Piper and occasionally assists the Flash."

God, Piper needed a better rep; no one ever took him seriously. From what he could tell a similar conversation was taking place on Intergang's end of things, or at least there were plenty of people asking what they should do and if they were allowed to shoot him.

"Last warning. Turn around and get the hell out of my city." Piper lifted his favorite flute to his lips.

"I invite you to go right ahead." Luther said, waving a generous hand in Piper's direction.

That sinking feeling of doom Piper had been trying to deal with all morning kicked him in the balls and left him squirming. Sometimes, he really hated being a hero, not as much as he had hated being a villain towards the end, but still.

On the Intergang side of the square even more guns were being aimed in his direction and Piper decided to take that as a sign that they weren't willing to play ball either.

To hell with it.

Modulating the sound for maximum spread and volume Piper went through a cord straight into the ear-piercing range. The few windows that Intergang hadn't managed to break vibrated in their frames where they didn't shatter outright. The water dripping from every exposed surface quivered as if surrounded by a giant ringing bell. And most importantly, people fell to their knees. Intergang's canine troops were the first to go down, howling out their pain in bitter discord. The few feline troops joined them a second later, as did the bat-creatures, falling from the sky as their primary sense was torn out. Bombers and fanatics fell to their knees dropping weapons in favor of covering their bleeding ears. In one pair of hands a rocket launcher wavered and went off. Piper barely saw the missile coming but it was enough for instinct to throw him backwards as the corner of the building blew up under his feet.

* * *

The sound of Piper's flute cut off abruptly leaving the slow drip of rain, and the quiet howls of pain as the only thing filling the silence. Lex watched the corner of the rooftop for a few more seconds then disregarded the d-list hero. He clapped his hands once, turning back to his adversary.

Just under a quarter of Intergang's forces had been taken down. The majority of the beast men were on their knees as were a good section of their regular troops but it was the least dangerous who had gone down. The machines had all survived untouched as had the people tucked safely inside them. The mercenaries and other professional hitters had all had the sense to wear earplugs going into the firefight, and were even now getting to their feet. For his part Luther hadn't worn earplugs, but then, he had a disruption barrier around him that even air couldn't pass through. The minute a danger had been recognized it had closed around him and cut off the means of attack.

Not the most effective of attacks but Luther did appreciate a quarter of the opposition being taken down. He would have to thank Piper if the man managed to survive, but for now, back to business.

"Well, that was certainly interesting." Lex turned to address his opponents directly. "You know, As impressive as this showing is, I'm afraid I'm going to have to destroy you. Reputations and loose ends and all that; so if any of you want to run away, now would be the time."

There were grumbles of anger and catcalls from across the square but by that point Lex wasn't really listening. He waved a hand at Mercy, who knelt and began manipulating the case she had brought.

Someone in Intergang finally got their act together and sent out the attack order.

First one then dozens of shots were fired, filling the air with bullets as much as rain. Lex did some quick mental math and his shield jumped into place between him and any possible ricochet. The robots moved a second later aiming machine guns and laser beams alike at the center of his mass. Luther stood his ground as waves of dirty rainwater and steam were kicked up by the shots deflected from his shield.

Luther knew his shield couldn't block this kind of damage for a sustained amount of time but he measured sustained in hours and mercy would be done with her calibrations in another 3 minutes if he estimated correctly. At this point all he had to do was keep them angry enough so that they didn't realize they weren't doing any real damage.

Behind and above him the ornamented roof of the courthouse gave way, and for a moment he had to deflect his shields upward to turn away the falling marble. Pulverized stone joined the other debris in the air. A moment later, something set off the fountain in the center of the square. The statue of the old Golden age flash shattered, peppering the ground with yet more fragments and a flood of water that poured out over the cobblestones.

The Gunfire finally started to peter off, and in the silence, or at least what passed for silence after that much raw sound, a single voice managed to be heard.

"Aww, I had dibs on that one."

* * *

One of Intergang's men in the front row, a half alligator hybrid currently armed with a good old-fashioned Tommy gun who went by the name of Kurt, pushed the pair of goggles he was wearing up onto his forehead to squint around in search of the speaker. If he didn't know better he would've sworn it sounded like some kid. Intergang wasn't above using children of course, but none of them sounded like kids after they went through processing.

"Why don't you shut up and give us some room to work here Tricks."

Kurt could be sure of it this time the voices were definitely not coming from his side of things. That was probably a good thing, anything who wasn't on his side was probably the enemy, and therefore could probably be shot without anyone giving a damn, or at least without anyone on his side giving a damn. It made things so much simpler.

"You got it boss man."

That was the first voice again and Kurt raised his Tommy gun. The minute he saw a target he was going to take it. Something was coming through the smoke and rain and just clouded air. It was small, but beyond that Kurt couldn't tell what was. He trained his weapon on it all the same trying to follow the movement as best he could. It was on the ground now, still coming forward. Was a grenade? No, it wasn't shaped right. Finally it came into focus. A small red and blue top spun to a stop at Kurt's feet. He had just enough time to blink and get halfway through a single thought before the top exploded in a flare of fractal light and bright green flame. After that Kurt didn't do much thinking.

* * *

The Trickster let out a whoop of excitement as multicolored explosions went off all along the edges of the square. It looked like he was finally going to get a chance to pull out all the stops which only begged the question, what to try next? He was reaching for the stock of wonders that he always carried when the hand grabbed his arm.

"Not yet." Captain Cold muttered in a low growl.

The Trickster winced, the look in Cold's eyes was enough to make even him think twice, and he was the most crazy one of the group.

"Sure, sure whatever you say boss man." Cold let go of his arm and Trickster silently tried to step back out of the line of fire.

The air was finally starting to clear, the rain pushing the rest of it back down and adding to the nearly full inch of water covering the paving stones. Cold had instructed Mirror Master to put them down on the west side of the square. They were technically closer to Luther's side of things, but only by half a dozen feet or so. They weren't exactly in the center of things but as it stood the newly raised destruction from the Trickster had put them in the center of everyone's attention.

At the head of the group Captain Cold stood like an old West gunslinger, a rim of rolling Frost slowly creeping out from where his dirty white boots met the surface of the water. Captain Boomerang was to his left crouched down, kneeling so that the tail of his coat was caught up floating on the surface of the water behind him. He held one of his boomerangs in his hand like a knife that he desperately wanted to use. The Trickster had retreated to Boomerangs other side. Apparently the momentary scare hadn't set him off his game because he was loudly chewing bubblegum and rummaging around in that bag he always carried for who knows what. To Captain Cold's right Heatwave stood grumbling and fiddling with his flamethrower, held back from blasting everything only by a restraining hand from Cold. Beyond Heatwave a rainbow shimmer in the air might have just been an illusion created by the falling water to those who weren't familiar with glider and her astral projection powers.

Luther sighed a bit over dramatically. "And what is this supposed to be? More heroes come out of the woodwork to stop the bad guys from their reign of terror?"

"No." Even without modulators Cold's voice managed to reach everyone there. "We are not the heroes, and don't pretend you don't know otherwise Luther." Trickster's tops had managed to cause enough chaos on the intriguing side of things that Cold addressed his Statement Straight to Luther.

Lex Shrugged, and his attitude had gone from dramatic to condescending. "All right then, why don't you tell me why your marry gang of fools have decided that today was the day to grow a spine?"

"One shot, just one shot." Heatwave snarled, but Cold kept his hand up in a silent 'not yet'.

"Luther, I don't care what you or anyone else does in the rest of the world but you come to my city you damn well be prepared to play by my rules."

Lex was chuckling to himself now. "Oh yes, I'd heard you Rogues have a code, how delightfully archaic. Please enlighten me, which one of your little rules have I broken?"

"There's no score."

Cold waited while Luther paused then raised a hand in an 'and...' gesture.

"What, you want me to pay you for the privilege of taking down my enemies in this little backwater culdusack of town you've claimed?" Luther straightened his shoulders and adjusted his tie. "Cold, you are nothing but a third rate villain with a gimmick, and not worth my time, so here's my ultimatum: crawl back into whatever hole you were hiding in and I won't bother looking for you."

"You satisfied now mate?" Boomerang asked in an undertone

"Yeah, take 'em"

Captain Boomerang stood and the tension bleeding through the situation finally exploded.

* * *

Luther had paused just long enough to be sure his words were heard before he dismissed the Rogues turning his focus back to where Intergang was pulling itself together. "Mercy?"

"Systems active and operating at one hundred percent sir."

"Excellent, activate full automation." Around Lex a perfect sphere of miniscule pellets formed up. The metal beads could have almost been mistaken for raindrops if they weren't stationary. With a gesture Lex collected a handful to hover over in one hand and send them flying across the plaza into the heart of his enemy. The moment the spheres made contact with metal or flesh, the nanites they were comprised of burst into action, expanding to consume any adjacent mass and transform into dark masses of teeth and claws.

* * *

In the second tank from the front Bruno Mannheim cursed richly as the sensors reported his front line taken out by tops of all things. He knew some people liked to have a gimmick but this was just ridiculous. Numbers were still coming in from that first hero's attack and no one seemed to be sure just what had been done. Still cursing in four languages he backhanded the unlucky lackey at the controls and tried to shift enough to get a view of what was happening outside.

Luther was talking to some new group that had shown up. Mannheim didn't know who they were but he had had just about enough of people trying to stop them. He gave the one order that he knew would be obeyed and signaled a full frontal attack on anyone who wasn't them.

The word spread like wildfire and the soldiers who had been irritably marching in the rain finally found an outlet for their rage. Robots shifted into motion, knives were drawn and safeties removed, howls came up from twisted throats and the whole mass of Intergang's forces shifted into forward motion.

The clash of forces was something elemental. The first wave of Intergang's army was taken down in moments by Luther's nanites, but it was a sacrifice that proved to be worth it. Consuming that much mass made the nanites too large for their limited AI, slowing movement and giving Intergang the chance to attack a target that was now larger than the bullets they were firing.

The Rogues were swept up in the attack, caught between the two forces and pinned with their backs against the sturdy bricks of the Manchester building.

* * *

"Take 'em" Captain Cold said and the hand barring Heatwave from action dropped away. Mick was sick and tired of all this damn rain putting a damper on things. It was time to heat things up. Stepping out towards Intergang's oncoming forces he picked out a few likely targets, brought up his flamethrowers and let loose.

Steam hot enough to burn exploded up from the ground and Heatwave took several steps forward over dry cobblestones before the water dared to reclaim their surface. Figures stumbled out of the steam some screaming as their skin blistered, others were more prepared with heavy vests thick canvas pants and combat boots to protect delicate skin. Those ones Mick set on fire. He melted plastic buckles and fused synthetic fibers to the people wearing them while anything more natural became kindling. Human or beast they dropped to their knees under his hand, desperately clawing at the water on the ground as if something as simple as a little rain could put out his fire.

Then the insectron stepped forward and with a sweep of one enormous limb swept away his cloud of steam and tossed Mick into the wall of the bank.

Mick looked up at the giant mantis robot, dragged himself to his feet and reached for the settings on his flamethrowers.

The insectron had seen better days. This one was shaped like a praying mantis with a quartet of pile-driving spiked legs and scything forelimbs made of dozens of overlapping seriated blades. The overlarge multifaceted eyes bulging from its headpiece glowed a dull sullen red that somehow set off the peeling green paint on its thorax and abdomen. Oil was leaking from its joints adding black ooze as the final touch on the hellish picture.

Heatwave craned his neck up to take in the robot. He was less than a quarter of its height but if anyone had been close enough and had bothered to look, they would have seen the smile stretch his lips beneath the orange plastic of his mask. With one final turn of the settings he lifted the flamethrower in his right hand and sent a beam of fire at the robot that more closely resembled a lazar then a blowtorch.

The fire struck the insectron half way down one side of its second section, tearing straight through the joint that kept one of those scythes attached. The enormous mass of sharpened metal twisted, crashing to the ground as the front leg on that side gave way as well.

Heatwave raised an arm to block the splash, but when he looked up the creature hadn't gone down. With two of its limbs torn away it staggered sideways but it was still standing; crackling as loose electricity danced over its metal hide, the oil on its surface ignited. Heatwave laughed, his eyes alight with reflected flame even as the mantis brought down its second scythe.

* * *

Lisa almost felt her brother give the signal. In her present state, halfway between this world and some other reality, the golden glider didn't so much hear or see the world around her as sense it the way light might sense the presence of a black hole. Cold and the other Rogues were Other, as were the bodies lined up and marching closer and the two figures on the steps. If she focused, pulled herself more towards reality, she could identify individuals, but the closer she came the more corporal her form became, and in the middle of a firefight that held considerable danger.

To one side a figure sent up waves of heat and she figured Mick had been let off his chain. In the other direction energy sank into a well of stillness that would mark the location of Captain Cold. The others had no doubt spread out as well; now it was time for her to do her part.

The Golden Glider focused on the non-organic energy she could feel swarming in clusters around her, picked out the nearest one, and bounced towards it in a shower of reflected light. She danced between the raindrops, gaining a picture of the whole setting from the way they shattered against any solid matter. It was the rain that gave her warning that her target wasn't completely oblivious of her.

The electronic intelligence seemed to be amorphous and while it had definitely had the mass of a small dog just moments ago, it now took up roughly the same space as a man. It sensed her enough to reach out, but it couldn't grab her in her projected form any more than a normal man could hold light. She danced around it bouncing off raindrops and throwing different types of signals at it to test it's reactions. Nothing seemed to affect it until she wrapped it in a faraday cage of electrons and cut it off from the outside world.

The thing shuddered, vibrating like it was trying to tear itself apart. It screeched through a cord that she could hear even in her disembodied state, and fell into component pieces, a web of energy stretched out over the remains like the quivering limbs of a dying animal.

Lisa smirked and flickered away looking for her next target, and leaving the machine to bleed its energy into the rain.

* * *

The Trickster let the bubble he was blowing pop with a snap and pulled the gum back into his mouth. Cold gave the go ahead and Axel's grin collected points in size and craziness. So much of the time Trickster was relegated to being the distraction, getting in on the real fight would be awesome. He jumped, letting his airwalkers catch him at the peak, and pumping his legs to gain more height. One hand found the volume on his music player and heavy rock blasted from the headphones around his neck overriding the sounds of combat, and telling him to 'teach the devil how to set himself on fire'.

Trickster dug around in his bag and came up with a handful of his custom trickster-bombs a moment later he was yelling "Bombs Away" and "Death from Above" as he chucked them into the crowd beneath him.

Not many of the Rogues could fly, and technically Trickster couldn't either, but normally his airwalkers were able to give him the high ground since the only hero he had to deal with on a regular basis was the Flash who couldn't fly either. All that probably contributed to the half condor creature decking him without warning.

"Hey," Trickster yelled as he was knocked forward and would have gone sprawling if there was anything to land on. Instead he fell half a dozen feet before his airwalkers reengaged and he was left dangling upside-down from his shoes with his head about four feet from where a group of robot monkeys were trying to tear apart one of Luther's blob creatures. The blob looked mostly like some kind of dog at the moment and was managing to hold them off for the most part, at least until one of the MONKI's grabbed its tail.

The condor swooped around for another pass and Trickster scrambled for something to throw. He couldn't get into his bag so he grabbed whatever was handy, which happened to be one of the MONKI's who had jumped a little too high. For a moment the monkey just froze as if stunned, then it screeched in the robotic equivalence of terror and rage as it was flung up through the air. The condor creature suddenly found its self with an angry and uncaring passenger as the monkey latched onto it and went to town on the sodden feathers.

Trickster laughed and punched the air in triumph, realizing too late that, since he was still upside-down, that put his arm in range of the monkeys who hadn't taken up a career as a projectile weapon. Luther's blob-dog was pretty much done for at that point, melting into a gray sludge that mixed with the rain. That, of course, left the monkeys free to latch onto Trickster's arm and yank him down to earth. With another yelp Trickster finally connected with the ground. He managed to roll out of most of the damage but came up surrounded by the robotic little green eyed creatures.

One of them cocked its head to the side and chirped at him, and Trickster had to wonder if his bag of tricks contained any bananas.

* * *

"Take 'em." Cold said and he reached for his gun. To one side Heatwave stepped forward towards Intergang. Cold let him pass then turned to put the man at his back. He started with his cold-gun held loosely, pointed at the ground. A single step and he was standing on a half inch layer of ice that had been rainwater a minute before. Under his booted feet it cracked, sending a maze of fractures across the translucent surface. One of Intergang's men had managed to get around Heatwave and he lunged at Cold, only to be encased in ice as Cold offhandedly froze the water on and in his skin.

Cold brought up his gun and set it to the widest setting, creating a field of super-chilled air as a shield around him as he took deliberate steps over the frozen ground. Rain that drifted into his sphere of influence froze into snow, creating his own personal blizzard that lashed out at anyone who came to close.

Cold took aim at one target after the next, hitting each dead center and freezing them solid as he walked the length of the front line. It didn't seem to matter which side was winning or which side a particular target was on, he just sighted, pulled the trigger and moved on to the next one.

Then an order seemed to come down through Intergang's forces marking him as a top priority target, while at the same time whatever intelligence was driving Luther's nanite creatures decided he was too dangerous to let live. Both sides swarmed over him, the increasing body count only providing shielding to those in the second and third wave. Cold spun from one target to the next leaving arcs of frozen air where the tip of his gun passed. He might have been shooting at still targets compared with how fast the Flash moved and if someone managed to get close it was only because he was busy shooting at someone else before turning his gun on them. The spikes in his boots bit into the ice on the ground making his footing as solid as if he were cemented to that spot, though his opponents weren't so prepared. Even with the shield provided by his first few wide-beam blasts fading, just getting close to him was enough cause frostbite on unprotected skin.

Cold was busy trying to deal with a nanite creature that had been smart enough to spread itself thin in the air so he couldn't target it all at once when the twisting-metal shriek cut through the air. All at once the coordinated press of Luther's nanites became an explosion of vicious motion.

With a flick of his thumb Cold switched his gun to its wide setting and cleared the space around him. The air went crystal cold and the rain fell away to reveal the chaos the battle had become.

* * *

"You satisfied now mate?" Boomerang asked, knowing Cold would hear the underlying question as well. 'Can I take him down a few pegs?'

"Take 'em" Cold said and Digger heard the 'go right ahead' that he really meant.

Digger moved.

Captain Boomerang didn't have any ambient protection like Heatwave or Weather Wizard or Cold. If he got into a tussle the only things protecting him were his own reflexes and a few good weapons. Digger had been going up against the Flash for years now and was still around to brag, his reflexes were probably faster than anyone else there. So when he moved it was quick and lean, whipping a pair of boomerangs out in front of him to clear his path as he sighted on his real target.

Running forward he slipped inside people's guard, twisting his blades into unprotected spots before turning and throwing the same bloody weapon into his next target. Unlike Cold he was skirting the edge of things, choosing his targets with an offhanded logic that always let him move forward when the enemy fell.

He tried to avoid robots after the first one, one of the Red Tornado rip-offs, deflected his first attack. It had blasted him with a cone of wind that he had only just managed to slip under. Rolling, he had come up in the perfect position to hamstring the robot, and if he thought that would have done any good, he would have tried it. Instead he came up on the balls of his feet and trapped the robot in an arm lock. A normal person would have been able to relax, twisting away from his armature grip so that their arm wasn't dislocated. The robot had no such option and the shoulder joint was ripped apart as a result. Digger took a moment to jam one of his explosive boomerangs into the broken joint, blowing open the thing's chest before moving on.

One clear shot was all he would need. Just one shot that came out of the blue, completely unseen and Luther would go down. He sliced his way past a half-ape humanoid and pressed his back to a damp brick wall when an explosion drew the attention of anyone with the spare time to look. Heatwave had apparently managed to set a giant praying mantis on fire, which wasn't that surprising given that it was Heatwave, but still provided for a very admirable distraction. In the two seconds he was spared Captain Boomerang aimed, and threw.

In the next moment he was moving again, pushing back a second ape-man who was summoning flashbacks of when Grodd had taken over the city. Digger may have been a bit rougher with the ape-man than necessary.

* * *

Piper managed to pull himself back to consciousness, only to wonder if he wasn't still dreaming. The rooftop he was on was littered with rubble and water where the rain wasn't draining away fast enough. Pushing himself to his knees the battle below him came into sight. The square had been destroyed, the Flash statue rubble on the ground and the fountain overflowing with more than just water.

The mantis insectron was blocking most of Main Street. Half of it had been torn away and it was blazing, but that hadn't stopped it yet. At least it hadn't until Heatwave melted a hole straight through its thorax. Piper spotted Boomerang pressed against the wall beneath him fighting half a dozen of Intergang's soldiers. Trickster was airborne and being chased by three robot monkeys with jet-packs and a very angry condor that was missing half its feathers. A glimmer of dancing sunlight stood out in the midst of Luther's forces. Piper guessed that was the Glider though it could have been some attack from Luthor's side of things. Piper had no idea what the creatures were after all; he only knew that the gray amorphous things seemed to be protecting the courthouse steps. And there in the middle of everything was Captain Cold. He had created a sphere of white broken ice for twenty feet around him and the space was littered with frosted over statues that had once been living things, or in some cases robots.

The picture was of a field that stretched the extremes. One ten foot square was vastly different from the next in terms of who was fighting what and what weapons were being employed. Even setting aside the Rogues, the battlefield was a mess.

A flatbed truck with one of the laser array's mounted on the back pushed through the remains of the insectron, the cannon making a popping sound as it converted the mass of burning metal into what looked like green jelly. On Luther's west flank some of the gray creatures combined taking on a shape similar to a large boar or possibly a stout bull; it rammed a group of Intergang's forces who were taking shelter behind the remains of the Flash statue's head. A pair of grenades were thrown in a one two attack that pulverized a section of the courthouse steps, without doing any damage to the gray mass that was hovering like a cloud of bees above the spot. While ten feet down the gray matter was busy consuming the bodies of the fallen only to be peppered by machinegun fire that tore it apart.

It was surreal. Not so much because of the fighting, Piper had seen crazier, though admittedly this came close, but more because of the lack of response. A fight this major breaking out in the middle of a city and there wasn't a single civilian running and screaming. There were no sirens, no reporters, no police trying to contain the situation. There were no hostages or corrupt politicians waiting in the wings, nothing. Come to think of it they weren't the only ones missing. Above Piper, the Trickster spun in the air and tossed a ribbon at the MONKIs following him. The first one managed to dodge but the second wasn't so lucky, and the ribbon constricted around it's limbs sending it spiraling towards where Piper waited on the rooftop. The crash grazed Piper and again he landed sprawling on the roof.

This time Piper managed to stay conscious, sputtering as he pushed himself up from the puddle he had landed in. He was on all fours, looking down at the rainwater when he found the reason for the disappearance of Central and Keystone's citizens.

The water was full of faces. In every reflected drop of rain people looked back with wide eyed expressions. They pressed on the barriers that held them in only for a ripple to cross the surface and a new batch would appear. Businessmen, children, housewives, students, mechanics in stained overalls, cops and waitresses, in fancy dress and pajamas, they were all there, the people Piper had come out here to protect.

Piper stumbled back in shock, nearly falling off the roof. What the hell?

* * *

Four blocks from where the battle raged, on the highest balcony of the old Windsmore steeple, Mirror Master and Weather Wizard both looked up but, at two different skies. Weather Wizard stood with his back to the gargoyles that decorated the bell tower, his arms were upraised as if trying to embrace the sky. In his right hand the wand that helped him focus his power was alive with crackling energy that never quite made it to lightning. The winds at the top of the tower spun, twisting the clouds into a vortex and tugging at the Wizard's coat tails.

At the Weather Wizard's feet an inch of water had collected creating a shimmering reflective surface. No rain disturbed to pool as Weather Wizard sent it all over the side of the tower. But rather than Mark's reflection another figure stood as his reverse.

Mirror Master's pose reflected the Weather Wizards except instead of reaching up to embrace the sky his arms were spread over the land beneath him, fingers wide as if at any moment the world could fall apart.

Mark put a final spin on the clouds, drawing up more water from the river to keep the rain coming down. Then he let his shoulders slump in slightly, and his head fell forward to look down at his feet.

"Is it working?"

Mirror Master spared a moment to glance back at him. "So far. It's fairly contained all things considered."

"How's the shape of things? You know I can't see it from here."

"Well, I didn't count on so many robots, and Luther pulled out some new weapon that's causing a bit of trouble." Mirror Master appeared to be looking out into the distance, his eyes shifting over things Mark couldn't see.

Mark shrugged and squinted up at his clouds again. "Hell, if that's all they have to deal with things might actually go to plan."

"Maybe." Suddenly Mirror Master tilted his head sharply and let out a curse.

"Something wrong?"

"Piper's awake again."

"What? He's down there?"

"Yeah, showed up at the beginning, but someone knocked him cold before it became a problem. Looks like it didn't take, though, 'cause he's up now."

"Could he break it, do you think?" Mark asked, his voice not quite tipping into nervous, but certainly well into cautious.

Mirror Master considered. "Possibly but I don't think it's gotten to that point yet."

Weather Wizard let out a curse of his own. "Feels like we're doing nothing, sitting way up here, while they're all fighting."

Mirror Master grunted a response, his focus more on the scene playing out under his hands. "Just keep the rain coming." He hesitated briefly. "Something doesn't feel right."

The Weather Wizard spared a glance at the figure beneath his feet, then looked back to his sky. He took a moment to lower the temperature by a few degrees, just in case. Mirror Master wasn't the only one with a bad feeling.

* * *

The shriek that ripped through the air put twisting metal and nails on chalkboards to shame. Up and down the combat line all of Luther's nanite creatures shivered, contracting one moment then lashing out the next. The multi and variable shapes the various clouds had taken were abandoned until they had all assumed the form of large and lean gray hounds. They were eyeless, with double and triple rows of angular teeth, claws that might have fit a velociraptor, and rows of spikes were laid out along their spines. As soon as each had assumed its new shape it launched itself forward to attack.

The battle line shattered as the hounds abandoned a coordinated attack in favor of ripping everything in sight to shreds. Intergang tried to rally but was pushed back by yards before the super-hood mark II managed to get forward to cover their left flank. Those who fell were abandoned to be eaten, and each who was consumed added mass that contributed to the creation of more hounds.

Piper's mechanical ears were nearly overwhelmed by the screech, and faces in water became the last thing on his mind. Then he picked out the undertone, a single human voice that was nearly overwhelmed and yet somehow led the painful harmony. Following the sound with his eyes he found the source, and might have been surprised if he could manage to think through the pain.

Lex Luther had collapsed on the courthouse steps. A red stripe carved its way through his suit from the top of his left shoulder to curve around his right side. Mercy was kneeling above him, trying to assess the damage and keep an eye out for further attacks at the same time. Nothing seemed to be coming their way yet, but only because the hounds had caught everyone by surprise.

The tide of battle was turning.

* * *

Trickster ran through the air trying desperately to think of a way to get these monkeys off his back. The condor had been taken out by a stray shot from below and one of the monkeys had met the same fate but there were still enough of them to be a total pain. Digging through his bag he tossed thinks out at random. Trickster-bombs sticky grenades and a hand full of old notebooks went tossed by the wayside. Then he got to the ball. It was one of the old tricksters tools that he had salvaged and had never gotten to work. At first he had thought it was a super-bouncy ball. Something that would ricochet off everything until it was finally caught ... or something. That would have been cool. It kind of looked like a bouncy ball too. It looked like red rubber until you held it, then it seemed to have too much weight and it pricked at Axels fingers like something between static cling and a suction cup. Trickster tossed it behind him with the rest of the junk and suddenly he found out what it could do.

The ball clipped the first MONKI only to hit the one behind it. Unfortunately the MONKI was fast enough to snatch the thing. Fortunately the orb activated.

For a moment the thing went from red rubber to bright green, then it started blinking. The monkey holding it stopped in mid air to gaze at the thing, and a moment later the others did as well. The ball was strobing through the color spectrum, one minute blue the next fading into purple only to blink rapidly to yellow and orange.

Trickster paused in his run, turning back to look at the group who had been chasing him. It was a bit anti-climactic that they had just stopped. Now he could take them all out with one blast of his slinky-gun. Trickster considered it for a moment but what fun would that be. Instead he took a deep breath and called out.

"Hey, that's mine!"

The monkey's turned to blink at him, or some of them did, others were still mesmerized. They chirped questioningly.

"MINE" Trickster pronounced in a slow deliberate tone.

Now he had all of their attention, and they didn't look like they were going to attack. Well, except for the one holding the orb. That one pulled the orb into his chest, holding it tightly like a child with a favorite toy.

"Well?" trickster asked. "Give it back."

The monkeys looked at each other as if trying to figure out whether to give it back or just ignore him. Trickster stomped, which wasn't really as effective since he was standing on thin air.

"Only my friends can touch my stuff." He had his hands on his hips and was glaring at them from behind his mask. One of them chirped questioningly. "Only my friends." He reiterated.

They looked at each other, then the one with the orb drifted forward, still holding the orb tight. He was just out of grabbing range when he stopped and chirped again. He looked down at the orb and crooned.

Trickster shook his head. "Nope. Only my friends can touch my stuff and all my friends are helping me fight."

All the monkeys including the one with the orb perked up at that. They looked down at the battle below and for the first time Trickster really payed attention to it as well. The fight had taken a turn for the worse. The Rogues were fine of course. Heatwave seemed to be covering Boomerangs back and Cold was advancing through the fight with purpose, letting the cold around him do most of the work. But the rest of it was bloody. Intergang was fighting tooth and nail against Luther's creatures and they were still being pushed back. And once Intergang fell there would be no one to take the slack off the Rogues.

One of the monkeys pointed a hand down at the battle and fired a shot from the mini-beam on his wrist. One of the hounds yelped and staggered shaking it's head and looking up in search of who had attacked it.

Trickster let out a burst of laughter.

All the monkeys looked at eachother then started firing down at the hounds in bursts. This time the laugh wasn't a surprise. Trickster jumped down a few feet pulling out his snot-gun and taking aim. The MONKIs were suddenly swarming around him, chattering in maniacal glee. He fired and a swarm of bolts followed his aim. The hound was bathed in acid then fried by a dozen laser bolts. It didn't get up.

* * *

Cold pushed past the edge of where Intergang's forces were fighting with the things Luther had unleashed. The gray hounds threw themselves at him but were overwhelmed by his personal environment. After the first shattering failures they circled him like jackals darting forward and back and snapping any time they had the slightest chance of hurting him.

Cold ignored them as long as they didn't get too close, turning instead to the one controlling them. Luther still lay on the courthouse steps, his eyes dancing between the different hot-spots in the battle as he tried to stop the bleeding.

Cold started up the steps only to be confronted by Mercy Graves, looking vicious even in a tight little skirt and hat.

"Come one step closer and I'll put a lazar through your skull."

Cold stopped his advance and shifted his attention. "You going to let the help speak for you Luther?"

"The last I checked Mercy was quite capable of speaking for herself." Luther replied without taking his attention from his injuries.

Cold growled under his breath and took another step forward. Mercy sent the warning shot across his left shoulder. The beam of her modified Lexcorp sidearm had been hot enough not to be stopped by the temperature, but the beam had shifted from a white-hot yellow to a sullen red as it entered the field. Mercy lifted the weapon away from Cold long enough to maximize the settings before training it back on the center of his chest.

Cold retaliated by firing a few shots at the ground by his feet. It sent frost dancing over the steps and the temperature dropped another few degrees. He planted his feet. He wasn't going to be put off that easily.

* * *

Captain Boomerang was not faring well. He was decent in a fight but that was against people, and the occasional robot or monster. He'd survived being on the suicide squad twice after all, and that should speak all for itself. On the other hand that was normally assassinations and infiltration work, not out and out combat.

The hard fact of it was: He was slowing down. He just couldn't keep this pace up forever and he was doing no real damage to the hounds. ( He had given up attacking Intergang when the tide had turned, and so far they were too preoccupied to attack him. ) Every time he would attack one of the hounds, every time he landed what should have been a killing blow, the hound would fall, only to get back up thirty seconds later.

He had started with a decent amount of room, but every time one of them got back up he seemed to lose feet and no matter how many boomerangs he kept about his person he would run out eventually. Even if they always came back if he wasn't there to catch them it made little difference.

He could admit things were turning sour. With a glance around he pinpointed the closest person who he could trust not to stab him in the back at the first opportunity.

Heatwave had managed to melt a section of the nearest building, and had put it at his back. The metal had gone red-hot before beginning to slump, the bricks had gone black and any wood had instantly gone up in smoke. The rain seemed to be vaporizing before it even got close, creating a clear patch in the damp. The fire was putting off enough heat to singe the hair of a man's head at twenty feet, but even that wasn't enough to fully keep everything a bay. Heatwave had made himself a target by being the flashiest fighter on the field and not even Intergang was letting up on him. His twin flamethrowers were going non-stop as he tried to cover three sides at once.

Captain Boomerang was nearly fried as he approached, if the rain hadn't plastered his costume to his skin long ago he would have been out of the game.

"Hey, watch it!"

Heatwave shifted to another target, glancing at Boomerang in distracted questioning.

"Just cover that side. I've got this one."

Heatwave nodded and gave his full attention to blasting anything that came into his range of fire.

* * *

The standoff between Cold and Mercy stretched, and Cold found himself almost wishing for the Flash's bad jokes. At least with Flash you never had to sit around waiting for your opponents next move.

"Call off your creatures Luther." Cold growled out the words, meaning them as a threat, but apparently Luther didn't take it as such. Instead the businessman started laughing.

"That's the beauty of it. My nanites are based of Ivo's old designs. That fool the Atom showed me the blueprints when the android came back to earth. Except the only way to control the nanites was to tie them to my own brainwaves. Hurting me was the worst thing you could have done." Luther gasped in pain as he tried to tie off the bandage he had been wrapping around himself and the thing slipped. A moment later he was back in control, jaw tight as he started speaking again. "Hurting me put them into self preservation mode. Now they'll do whatever it takes to eliminate the threat. The only way to stop them is to eliminate the signal. I'm not directly controlling them anymore, though they might have picked up that hound shape from my subconscious. It would be an interesting thing to test." The last bit was said with a sigh as he eased himself down into a more comfortable position on the steps.

"I don't give a fuck Luther, just end this, or blood loss will be the least of your worries."

Mercy suddenly swept in, one hand pulling off shots with that modified laser pistol while her other reached for something that spun glittering in the air for a moment before Cold brought up a sheet of ice and trapped the thing in the air. The explosion it caused shattered the ice wall a moment later. Mercy had been forced to bring up her arms in a shield but cold was ready, firing a tight beam through the opening the explosion had made in his wall. Mercy reacted to the shot as fast as humanly possibly if not more so. She spun, dodging the blast while still keeping her body between Cold and her employer.

Suddenly Luther's eyes were on Cold, sharp and bright and bearing down on him. Cold had no problem meeting the gaze, at least until he heard the cracking of ice behind him. Years of instinct and training had him spinning and firing off a pair of shots before he could even see what was coming at him.

It saved his life.

Three hounds had crept up through the barrier of his atmosphere, their hides turning a crystal white as snow stuck, unmelted to their darker plated skin. The leftmost one was struck frozen at the height of it's leap while the other two were blasted away by the sudden rush of wind as the temperature shifted. Even if the attack hadn't been completed it served perfectly well as a flank, giving Mercy the moment she needed to regain her feet and position.

Back to stalemate.

Cold settled in. He knew as well as anyone that it couldn't last.

* * *

When the nanites changed Lisa wasn't surprised, but the new form they took, that of giant hounds, didn't match any of her expectations. So far the nanites had been exceptionally good at adapting to whatever she threw at them. She would take down or stun one and those around it would shift to compensate for the attack. Lisa still wasn't sure if they could actually see her or if they were reacting to some other evidence of her presence. They seemed to have some collective intelligence or at least the ability to know what the others were doing, maybe something like a group of networked computers.

After they became hounds though; then they started getting vicious. Up until then they seemed not to know what to do about her. They adapted to her attacks but couldn't seem to detect her half the time, so they couldn't respond in kind. Before, they mostly just observed, now they tore through her astral form taking any chance to harm her.

They bit at her, cutting through her form with claws and spikes and she pulled as far away from the world as she could in response. To her sight they looked like red-shrouded demons, the transmissions they were sending and receiving showing like an angry wound in the air.

The Glider gritted her teeth, wrapping herself around the nearest of her enemies and pulling it apart as she forced sections of nanites to shut down. From the outside it probably looked like chunks of the beast were being vaporized in large bites. She went for the throat and head. Since the things didn't have organs like a normal creature, it didn't really matter where she attacked but it felt right. The creature went down, sending out distress signals in yellow, orange and blue as it started collapsing into its component nanites.

She tried the same trick with the next creature, but it had already figured out how to defend itself. Wherever she tried to grab at the thing it became pliable; the miniature robots moving just enough so that she couldn't get ahold of them. She dug in deeper, becoming desperate. She was running out of ideas for ways to take them down and they were still multiplying.

The form of light and energy that was her hand was suddenly engulfed. The nanites shifted, the hound abandoning its form in favor of swarming around her wrist and up her arm. The Golden Glider screamed.

Had she been in her human form it would have been a high-pitched screech of rage and fear. In her astral form the scream went unheard up through the octaves until it made the rain quiver as it fell. In the distance glass and ice cracked. Around the Glider the enemy fell back at the unseen attack. The nanites around her arm overloaded and fell to join the rain on the ground. For a moment she nearly lost herself as exhaustion overtook her, but she managed to pull herself back from the brink and towards reality in time to take advantage of the momentary freedom of movement.

She took to the air. Sitting twenty feet up she looked over the battlefield for the first time since she had entered the fray. It wasn't pretty. Forms were strewn upon the ground. Blood and oil mixed with the water that was still falling, creating streaks of harsh color across the broken landscape.

Worse, the tide of combat had shifted. The others had learned the same things she had. Luther's creatures were adapting, and their new knowledge with vicious efficiency. The buffer of Intergang's forces between the hounds and her friends was shrinking rapidly. Heatwave and Boomerang had managed to get into a reasonably defensible position, but it was clear they would be overwhelmed at any minute.

This had to end.

The Glider turned and darted across the sky.

* * *

Piper leaned over the edge of his roof. He had caught a thread of conversation from Luther and strained to pick up his tones again. Then Cold spoke and he zeroed in on the conversation on the steps. Cold ordered Luther to stand down, which triggered a rant from the injured man. Piper was cursing all his luck when he was blindsided by a wall of sound.

The scream cut across Piper's enhanced hearing like a knife trying to burry it's self in his brain. God he was getting tired of that. He nearly shut down his enhanced hearing in pure self defense, before the cry suddenly cut off. In the absence, other noises filtered back. The fire blazing, steam hissing and ice cracking, screams of rage and pain. Piper searched through it all for the source of the scream. Anything that violently desperate had to mean life or death for someone, and so far, the hounds had been remarkably silent.

A moment later Piper found the circle of glittering light and fallen beasts that marked the position of the Golden Glider. Piper had enough experience sharing a battlefield with the Glider to know what she looked like in combat. Seeing her dart up into the air and arc away from the field of combat wasn't in character.

The fact of it was that Piper wasn't doing an ounce of good up on that roof. There was a chance that he might be able to affect the battle but given the lack of longstanding effects from his first attack he wasn't going to put much faith in a repeat. It didn't take him long to make up his mind and turn to follow the Glider.

* * *

The Glider zeroed in on the spire where Mirror Master and Weather Wizard waited.

When the Rogues had put together their plan Lisa hadn't thought it was a good idea to stick both one of their most powerful members and their means of escape so far away from the battlefield, not to mention keeping them hidden away in the first place. Now she was secretly happy that she had been overruled. Something could definitely be said for a strategic place to retreat to.

She reached the base of the tower and darted upwards, aiming for the roof. Stones flashed past until finally she crested the lip of the roof and Evan came into sight.

Mirror master looked up in shock when she came level with him but she cut through anything he might have said by starting to talk even before she slid back to physical.

"You have to pull us out. Now!"

"What?" Mirror Master Sputtered

"Is that Lisa?" from the pool at Evan's feet Weather Wizard looked up, his voice strangely modulated through the perfectly still water.

"Luther unleashed these, things. They're tearing us apart. Intergang is almost gone. The hounds, Luther's hounds, they're learning. You need to get us out of here." Lisa's words came fast and more than a little desperate.

Mirror Master shook his head. "No, I..."

"You have to!"

"I can't." Mirror Master grabbed Lisa's shoulders and forced her to look at him. "I'm the only thing holding this city together. If I try to pull the Rogues out and lose concentration this whole place will crumble and everyone here will get thrown back to the real world through whatever mirrored surface happens to be closest."

"What?!" Piper stumbled out onto the rooftop. "You mean this isn't real? A whole mirror city? You can do that? How? When? No, no time, Lisa's right if something isn't done everyone's going to end up dead."

"Is that Piper? Someone want to explain what's going on in there? I can't see a damn thing from this angle." Weather Wizard shouted up from where he was reflected. Piper saw him and blinked at the scene in the reflection. That, more than anything else confirmed what Mirror Master had said.

Lisa went ahead and ignored Mark's questions. "See? You have to-"

"It won't work." Even said again. His eyes were getting slightly glazed over as he tried to split his focus.

Now that Piper knew to look for it he could see all the clues that pointed at this world being just a mirror copy. The lack of people hadn't been surprising around the battle because everyone would have run for the hills but there was no one in this city at all. That was the biggest clue. Then there was the water. To create such a complex simulacrum Mirror Master had to have something to build off of, something with as many reflective surfaces as possible. Piper should have guessed back when he had seen the faces in the water, but he had been distracted. And now Mirror Master was trying to keep up a conversation while holding together a whole city.

"Lisa, ease up. If Mirror Master says it's too risky then it is."

The Glider aimed one of her fiercest glares at him. "Golden Glider to you, and frankly I don't see how it's any of your concern."

"How about this then, better the enemy you know, then the army ready to tear out your throat."

"Fine!" she screamed into his face "You figure a way out of this then!" she pulled away from Evan's grip and ran a hand through her hair. It glittered, phasing through the light spectrum at the touch.

Mirror Master was too distracted to put in his two sense and through the reflection Weather Wizard was still muttering about not being able to do or see a damn thing. Piper ran a hand through his own hair.

"Luther's creatures won't just stop. He told your brother they were on autopilot now, just killing everything. They're plugged into Luther's brain and won't stop unless someone breaks the signal."

"So we just kill Luther." Glider had her arms crossed now, her nose turned up as if Piper was dragging a stench along with him.

Piper ignored her. "Your brother was trying, but Luther's creatures were getting in the way, plus Mercy of course. It's not going to be that easy."

"That's why I was saying we need to get him out of there."

Piper was already shaking his head, except something in the words lit a spark. "No, wait. Yes." In two quick steps Piper was grabbing Mirror Master, holding him by the shoulders. "You can't get us all out of here, but what about one person?" Lisa was already opening her mouth in an attempt to find fault but Piper didn't let her get started. "Intergang's already beaten, they just haven't stopped fighting yet. Stop Luther and the fight ends. I'm betting whatever signal he's using can't go through a mirror." The last bit was said to Evan.

The Mirror Master glanced between Piper and Lisa, but Lisa had been reduced to a weak shrug. She knew a decent plan when it was shoved into her face.

"Maybe." Evan was hesitant but he nodded all the same. "If there's a mirror big enough..."

"My brother's there, just use his ice."

Evan glanced to Lisa at her offhand comment but she was looking back toward the battle. He took a breath, settling down onto the rain-slick surface of the roof and trying to concentrate. Even Piper could tell the strain was getting to him. This would certainly bring an end to the party one way or another.

* * *

From where he waited in the real world Weather Wizard listened to the conversation. He turned his face to the sky when a decision was reached. He knew he had a part to play, without his rain the mirror city wouldn't be possible, but all the same; he wasn't going to sit around and watch any longer.

Above the twin cities, the clouds that had been hanging over the sky for weeks sighed, letting the wind catch the final drops of water before the sky started to clear.

* * *

Cold wasn't often forced to fight multiple opponents but when fighting a speedster you always had to be aware of multiple fronts. The same techniques applied. Cold pulled his second cold gun from it's holster and, using them in tandem, summoned a field of waist high icicles up from the ground. He was being surrounded, and for whatever reason the Hounds completely ignored Mercy, acting like she was one of their own.

He wove a maze of temperature changes in the air, until the sound of cracking ice was the only thing audible, then just as quickly reversed the effects creating explosions of water in the air. He called up frost on every surface until the ground was a slippery mirror and every step was a chance at a broken neck.

The hounds continued their press. He pushed them back again and again and still they rallied. Mercy wasn't as quick but she had range on that weapon of hers and it took moments he didn't have to deflect each of her shots.

The flash of green that appeared in his blue-grey world went unnoticed by the hounds but Mercy saw it's meaning nearly as fast as Cold did. Luther was gasping on the steps, the drop in temperature doing nothing to help his injuries.

Cold knew the signs of Mirror Master's doorways.

Evan reached up and tuged sharply on Luther's ankle. If the man was in better shape he might have avoided it but today wasn't that day. Mercy managed to grab the hem of her employers shirt in time to be pulled along for the ride. Cold settled for something a bit less dramatic, but then he was fairly certain Mirror Master wouldn't kill him in the crossing.

They landed on the rain slick surface of the courthouse steps. Less than ten feet away a group of businessmen in black suits and umbrella's had come to a shocked halt. On the corner, the small coffee shack was breathing out steam, while three customers waited in line. Cabs and town-cars were parked along the curb, and more then one had a person frozen in the act of getting in or out.

Luther groaned and gagged. It hadn't been an easy crossing, but Cold was used to that by now, his opponents clearly weren't. With none of the hounds around to stop him and Mercy desperately trying to stay on her feet, Captain Cold raised his gun as the first screams cut through the air.

* * *

Boomerang only saw the ice on the courthouse steps crack by chance. He might have been worried if he had a spare moment to actually think, but when fighting for his life, his life came first. His arm came out in a sweep, aimed at taking off one of the hound's heads, or at least forcing the creature back. The creature slipped under his strike and that was the end, he was dead, and he knew it.

Except, the hound was twitching at his feet.

There was no sign of injury, Boomerang knew he hadn't managed to hit the creature, and no one else was close enough to have done it. The creature started in on a whining screech, and began to lose its shape.

"Well, color me confused." He muttered finally looking around.

The other hounds were acting the same as the one at his feet. All across the battlefield men and monsters were looking down at the creatures that had been tearing them apart. A cry went up somewhere. It was tinged with laughter and slightly hysterical but more voices quickly joined and a moment later the cheer was echoing across the empty had won. Someone had done something, and they had won. Trickster dropped into the air above Boomerang, grinning like the Cheshire cat. Around him a bunch of robotic monkeys played with a flashing ball.

"Did we win?"

"Think so." Boomerang answered. He was still waiting for the other shoe to drop. In his experience nothing was done until he had made it back home and managed to open a beer in peace. Sure enough, as soon as Intergang realized their opponent was down, they were rallying to claim victory. Well, that couldn't be allowed. Just because Luther was down didn't mean Intergang could run rampant in the Rogue's city.

"Hey Trix," Boomerang called up to the young Rogue still floating at head level, "You got any knockout gas on you?"

Trickster glanced down then started rummaging through his bag. "I've got two canisters of laughing gas from when the Joker was in town and Flash teamed up with the Bat, plus four smoke grenades, and some exploding bubbles. At least, I think they're exploding bubbles." Came his reply a minute later.

"Fine, use the laughing gas then. We need to shut these blighters down for a while."

The Trickster threw up a mock solute and raced off, gaining height as he went. Captain Boomerang was just starting to contemplate the task of reigning in Heatwave when the ground under his feet shuddered.

"Bloody hell." somehow he had known this wouldn't be that easy. In the distance the sound of breaking glass started ringing from the towers.

Time to go.

Boomerang grabbed Heatwave's shoulder, forcing him away from the lure of red-gold flame. He tried to keep an eye on Trickster but for the life of him he couldn't find the Glider and Cold had seemed to vanish along with Luther.

The skyline shifted as buildings first lost color then began to collapse in on themselves. Intergang was growing quiet again. They had already been disorganized and weak in the aftermath of a fight they had been losing; with Tricksters grenades they had quieted, simply waiting for whatever came next.

The square, not very bright to begin with, was losing color now, sliding into shades of grey and leaving the bright costumes as the only points of color in the landscape. Distance became impossible to judge.

"Come on Evan, don't go leaving us here in the larch." Digger grunted to himself. The mirror master could usually be counted on but given the state of the world he had created Captain Boomerang didn't want to think that today might be the exception.

A sharp crack opened across the front of the Keystone Central Bank. Digger was getting desperate now; he didn't want to think about what would happen if he was stuck in the mirror realm with only a group of Intergang goons for company. What they needed was a mirror, some reflective surface large enough for Evan to pull them back to the real world. Except there was nothing left that fit the bill. All the windows had been smashed when Intergang first came marching into town and without Cold they couldn't create a wall of ice to use like they normally did.

Digger was starting to think they were well and truly fucked. Then the hand grabbed his pant leg and yanked. Digger yelped as he began to sink into the ground

"What? Mirror Master? Give a bloke a bit of warning."

"No time." Even cut him off. "Tell Trickster to get down here. I can't hold this place together."

Digger whistled for Tricksters attention, then when that didn't work he sent one of his boomerangs up to clip the kid. When the kid looked down Boomerang gestured at their exit. The rain had stopped and the water covering the cobblestones was locked into a surface smooth as glass.

A shudder ran through the last remnants of the colorless world, and as it crumbled every living thing with a foot in the water was pulled through to the real world.

* * *

Piper raced from where Mirror Master had deposited him and the Glider next to the Weather Wizard. Piper didn't know as much about Mirror Master's powers as the rest of the Rogues but Evan hadn't seemed up to any fancy tricks. The simplest thing for him to do would be to just drop everyone into the real world without moving them.

Somehow, Piper didn't think dropping a hoard of super-villains on the courthouse steps would be seen as a life saving gesture.

He was still three long blocks away when the courthouse square gained several dozen people. It didn't look like Mirror Master had bothered with anything that wasn't moving so most of the robots and the dead had been left behind.

Before the sudden appearance, police had ringed the square, guns all aimed at Cold, who was in turn leaning against a block of ice that seemed to contain Luther. With the sudden addition the police went into crazy mode, shouting for everyone to get on their knees, while anyone who hadn't already had a weapon drawn made quick to find one.

This could blow up so easily, it already would have if not for the fact that practically everyone in the square was already worn out from fighting.

Someone from Intergang stepped forward, Piper didn't know them but from the way his fellows reacted he had to have some kind of rank. The man said something to the officer in charge, jabbing a finger in his face. Piper recognized Officer Chyre and grinned as he tried to keep up his pace. Chyre responded to the threat by grabbing the man's wrist and cuffing him there on the spot. The other officers followed his lead, moving forward to detain the Intergang members.

It kept the cops busy enough that they didn't realize the Rogues were regrouping. The Golden Glider was already a shimmering presence at her brother's side, Trickster floating above them with the robotic monkeys still hovering in the background. Captain Boomerang supported Mirror Master and Heatwave covered their retreat. Any second now someone would realize and the Rogues were making it clear that going back to Iron Heights wasn't an option in their book.

Piper was less than a block away when the officers started closing ranks. Chyre again stepped forward. He didn't say anything at first; he had been with the police long enough that dealing with the Rogues was literally in his job description. He knew how quickly this could turn into something no one wanted to deal with.

Then Mark showed up.

Even if the rain had stopped the sky was still overcast and now the black sky writhed as the Weather Wizard floated down on a column of air. Lightning flashed and the resulting thunder underlined Mark's words. "Not one step closer."

Suddenly Piper was very aware of the fact that Mark hadn't been part of the fight. In fact, the only thing he had done so far was keep the rain going, which he could probably do in his sleep. He was angry and frustrated, and unless Flash decided to show up; he was the most powerful person in the city at that moment.

Unfortunately Chyre was a stubborn old bulldog who certainly wasn't going to take lip from some punk in a yellow and green costume.

Piper made the logical conclusion that the cop was going to get himself killed and did the only thing he could think of to prevent it. He raised his pipe to his lips and locked everyone in place with his music. This earned him glares from basically everyone as he finally stepped onto the plaza. Piper sent an apologetic look towards Chyre, and switched to a tune that would send everyone in the plaza to sleep.

It didn't work quite as well as he had hoped. The cops all fell, as did the members of Intergang that weren't already being carted away but even without being able to move Cold had managed to bring up a wall of ice that protected the Rogues on the ground by distorting the sound waves. Weather Wizard apparently couldn't hear anything over the roaring of wind and the booming of thunder, and the Trickster made a vulgar gesture while dramatically turning up the volume on his music player.

Piper finally lowered his flute. There was a brief staring match before Piper nodded to them.

"Thanks for your help, protecting the city."

Trickster stuck out his tongue, Boomerang rolled his eyes and Weather Wizard crossed his arms and looked sullen.

"Weren't protecting the city." Cold grunted. "Just our turf." He gestured to Mark since Even was still out of it, and the Rogues departed on a roaring column of air.

Piper let them go without trying to stop them. They had earned a reprieve and besides, he knew a bluff when he heard one.

~ Epilogue ~

The Flash returned six days later along with all the other heroes. Wally made a story out of getting suckered into a tournament run by a group of benevolent aliens who wanted to build robot clones of the victor for their own defense forces. Personally, Piper thought it sounded like just another Wednesday. When asked if everything had been alright while Flash was gone, Piper just shrugged.

"Just the same old stuff." he said.

Wally had given him a look. He knew about the sudden increase of occupants in Iron Heights. Piper had been about to explain but that was when Grodd had finally shown up.

He had decided to take over the Central City Radio station and use it to broadcast his hypno-rays along with a thirty second, never ending loop, of Bongo music. Piper was going to take him down for the Bongos alone.

* * *

Again, I want to heartily thank justmeh for all the wonderful art. I know I was lucky to get matched up with them. I would also encourage people to take a look at the other stories written for this bang, especially if you like the Rogues. There are some real gems on the list there.

roguesbang _dot_ livejournal _dot_ com


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